Saturday, August 07, 2010

Under Pressure From BDL-MBDA, Indian Army Procured Inferior Milan ATGMs

It's audit report season, and the hits just keep on coming. Now in a report tabled in Parliament on Friday, new light on the December 2008 Army contract for 4100 Milan-2T tandem warhead ATGMs worth Rs 587.02-crore. Turns out the Bharat Dynamics (which license produces the missiles in Hyderabad) Union forced the MoD/Army to lower QRs so that an order could be placed.

The report observes, "Audit scrutiny revealed that even before issue of the first RFP to BDL in January 2007, Army was aware that an adversary was having ATGM of range longer than the Milan-2T and as such reducing the standards of GSQR of 2003 was not desirable. The Army in fact wanted ATGM of even longer range so as to avoid risk of exposure. It was also known to Army (June 2006) that third generation missiles were available in the global market. The Army had not even formulated GSQR for third generation missile for over two years when GSQR for Milan-2T was amended (August 2008)."

More agencies involvement does not root out corruption but makes corruption widespread but the job difficult. Incorporation of PSUs and DRDO in the process of procurement when it is not "make" or even if it hals make is an unwise policy.

In these cases, Institutional interests, then override national interests, user requirement are subordinated to Institutional requirements, and the result is a product which neither meets operation requirements, nor fully assist the institution to make or break.

It only corruption between various secretaries of MOD as all have a say in these procurement.It also protects their PSU empires or they will be job less.

Results : we are achieving neither operational superiority nor self reliance. The system is making all Babus rich rather than a few.

Shiv, this comment is beyond this article. You are increasingly deploying stuff on the blog like the Apture toolbar which is not only irritating but disrupts the reading experience of the user. Your blog it great (content-wise) and doesnt need these "sharing" tools. A simple sharing feature is good enough. Learn from BroadSword - great content, simple blog. I'd suggest you drop the jingbang from the blog and keep it simple and straightforward...

Could somebody explain how the answer to an enemy's long range anti-tank missile is having an even longer range anti-tank missile?? It is someting like a boxer who is tall and have longer hands and others is a little short and short hands, with all other parameters like weight (quantum of force) being equal. The boxer having longer reach will keep hitting the other and socre. For the other boxer, it is no solace that his body is stronger. he can at best survive but can not win his bouts. Survivability too has a limit.

At rudimentary level, competition is between the Armour and anti armour weapons like missiles. Now take them together as plate form facing each other. Any one who has longer range will be what is called at "Stand Off" position from where one can effectively fire on the other without one being fired upon in exchange.

The second aspect is that longer ranges enable BVR (beyong visual Range meaning target acquisiton range) by making the missile self seeker. that is you just fire and the missile will seek a tank beyong eye range and destroy it. Even if the missile does not have that technology, one can raise the firing plateform such as helicopterand exploit longer ranges.

Third, missiles are effectively used for destruction of other targets such as bunkers, houses, structures. There are places when the visual ranges improves tremendiously such as in mountains (looking up or down). There increased or better range of missiles are an advantage.

Generally, longer range missiles are medium or heavy and short range missiles are lighter. This has effects on the warheads and destructive potentials.

Lastly, in the battle of Armour Vs Missiles, there is a limit of providing protection to your tanks. In this respect Missiles seem to have won the cometition as they have improve tremendously. The development in mattelurgy to be deployed at large scale, have not been as superior as in explosive chemistry, kinetic physics and dynamics.

That is a lay man's answer to your fundamental question.

@ashish , you should know that much before you accuse CAG and Shiv of sensationalising th issue. may be you do not deserve to be where you are !

Please do not worry about these reports. Nothing will happen, So I request people in GOI to keep eating and maintain their health. And HAL, DRDO and whoso ever is worried, should also relax and enjoy their life and tax payer's money

haha CAG report says that the dhruv is only 10% "indegenous". So much for the great "DRDO" or as the pakis call it DODO.. they are like every other govt organisation.. sit and enjoy life with guarenteed pay, great pension, plenty of snacks everyday, no yearly appraisal (which is present in most western companies) and little incentive to improve or deliver.

Think about it, if I said all you had to do is come to my house everyday and you are free to enjoy tv and food and i'd pay you every month till the day you die (no matter what, including if you turn me down for any work i assign you). would you be bothered to do any work?

pathetic as the indian PSUs are, they provide a place for political parties to provide reservation jobs so that people can "earn" a living.

How reliable is the info that in MMRCA Typhoon And Rafale Front-runners. And the deal seems to be going to Typhoon . Just saw a story on Times Now."After exhaustive trials of six fighter jets, Indian Air Force (IAF) has made its choice clear to the Government on the kind of fighter jets needed. Frontrunners for the force are French fighter Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon built by the European consortium. Bernhard Gerwert, Chief, EADS, says “If you are taking into account the portfolio of EADS we can bring the bridge between civil aviation and military aviation.” But the Americans and Russians have lost out. Boeing’s F18 no longer a frontrunner and Sweden’s Gripen too falling off the Indian radar.

Despite MiG 35s big thunder, its engine failing to impress while the F-16, according to the IAF has no future. Another reason favouring Rafale and Eurofighter is political. Thomas Matussek, German Ambassador, “We regard India as a strategic security partner and this is why we do not insist on an end user monitoring agreement period.” So when the mother of all defence deals is signed for the 126 Multi-Role Combat Aircraft either Rafale or the Eurofighter will fly away with the Rs 42,000 crore deal. "

Who do you think actually hold the power to approve deals? The Army? No, netas and babus from the MoD, MoF, Cabinet Committe on Security etc. And they respond only to bribes, politics and pressure from defence PSU labor unions like BDL's.

This is hardly the first time the Armed Forces were shoehorned into accepting a particular product to benefit a defence PSU due to union protests. The BEL-Samyukta-partiality, the HAL-BEL-Rustom UAV selection, the order for additional HAL Tejas were all driven by such ulterior motives.

You are increasingly deploying stuff on the blog like the Apture toolbar which is not only irritating but disrupts the reading experience of the user. Your blog it great (content-wise) and doesnt need these "sharing" tools. A simple sharing feature is good enough. Learn from BroadSword - great content, simple blog....

Shiv ! How dare you ! Do not you know DRDO has lots of unaccounted money ! PSUs too ! Why are you trheatening IAS empires..

Do not you know Military is Apture tool bar, irritating and irrelevent !

Bharat-RATshak rahul, the toolbar is fine. Its a good app to share blog entries to friends. Stop whining. If you dont like it, noone asked you to come here. you rats always come to other peoples blogs and speak as if you know everything. Stick to your RATSHAK forum where you can throw links back and forth and call it "knowledge".

the BR people irritate me. they speak with such arrogance you'd think they are the gatekeepers of all knowledge. What they actually do is google everything and read and paraphrase it as their own comments!

Its rahul from br that is the real paki. their forum has so many freaking rules the constitution looks like a pamphlet!

they ban everyone who disagrees with their style of debate. freaking BR pakis.. they are RATS.. this is the name given to them by all normal people. but their superior intellect, makes them think they can take a swing at every journalist in the country.